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Is the Dataverse built for the common person rather than developer?

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Posted on by crham

As I get deeper into customizing Dynamics Field Service I'm finding that the Dataverse has a horrible data modeling and normalization making it incredibly difficult to make easy relationships and forms.

Was it built to abstract much of the wisdom behind an RDBMS or I guess whatever it really is since I'm guessing it cannot be a RDBMS?

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Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps

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AhmedSalih

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Good question, @crhambrick, Actually Dataverse is a relational database just like Microsoft SQL compared with the other options. What kind of issues are you facing in modeling your data?

Also, check this great article for @EricRegnier https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Apps-Community-Blog/Dataverse-is-not-a-database/ba-p/756215

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crham 56 on at

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I disagree. It's nothing like SQL.

In SQL you create tables and relationships and you go through a normalization process. You create queries to pull in data from all sorts of tables and the relationships can be more than one level.

With the Dataverse and Dynamics I can't show data in a form from anything other than a parent/child. Everyones answers are to add a new field and create a new relationship. THEN THAT'S NOT PROPER DATA MODELING!!!

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Guido Preite 1,488 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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Dataverse is basically a layer on top of a SQL Server. There are ways to display data more than a parent/child, for example you can show another children of a parent (lookup) using a quick view form and a subgrid. If you want to still create the tables and do a proper data modeling by yourself, you can still use SQL Server directly, why bother with Dataverse? If you know how to model you can create all the other functionalities Dataverse has to offer, like Business Units, Sharing, Security Roles. If you don't like model-driven apps you can always create a canvas app and query the SQL server directly.

Said this, there is a big difference on the capability of Dataverse and how the Field Service app has been specifically modelled, I also don't like some aspects of Field Service and the oob relationships (and how they behave) but I know what Dataverse can and cannot do.

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crham 56 on at

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Thank you. That's the first honest and helpful answer I think I've received out of any of my queries on this or other forums.

So is Dataverse--being a layer on top of SQL Server (which I assume is Azure SQL so I guess I'll need to get versed on the differences between it and SQL Server)--design more of an abstraction layer for making things easier for non-developers? If not then what's its purpose?

As for your question of why use Dataverse, my answer is that Dynamics Field Service depends on it as far as I know. As I researched FS I found that it had much of the functionality that we needed. As we got started with it and got further into the weeds I find that it seems like an half-baked app and coupled with the limitation that (I thought is blamed on Dataverse) of not being able to create forms with grandchildren records I'm starting to wonder if we made a bad decision going with Dynamics.

This specific issue is that FS doesn't seem to have a time log acceptance business flow--even though it seems to be marketed as having one.
I'm trying to create a tab on the Work Order that shows each Time Entry and it's notes as editable data and have a checkbox to accept the time log.
It turns out that for some reason Time Entry notes are not in the Time Entry table but rather in a Bookable Resource Booking Quick Note table, and worse that table doesn't have a relationship with the Time Entry. Therefore an admin can't look at a time entry and see the notes of what's done and the time it took and accept it nor change the amount of billable time we'll bill for that specific Time Entry.
Seems it's going to take a lot of customization to get there and wondering if it's worth it to go down that road and then continue to hit road blocks at every turn with FS365.

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Fubar 8,338 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Dataverse is a Platform, like many platforms where some things are simplified other things become more complex (e.g. performing a complex join).
It originates from Dynamics CRM and is built on top of MSFT SQL Server - but what is exposed to you (online) is via a layer of Web services not direct database access (on premise has more database access but to do things in a supported way - other than viewing - customizations are done via the web services)
You also need to change your perspective from RDBMS to and Entity Form based perspective (i.e. forms do not sit in isolation and access what ever data you pull into them, they are tightly bound to their underlying Entity - Canvas Apps and Custom Pages divert from this slightly).

Note: the platform is flexible and able to be heavily customized. You can get the data you are after by making use of either Web Resources, Embedded Canvas App,, or PCF Control or a Custom Page - but you have to customize it as natively you are restricted to a one-to-many or many-to many subgrid..

Also note, depending on what you are doing you may be able to make use of existing nested grid view functionality on the subgrid (configured under the "controls" tab when configuring the subgrid (this can get one relationship lower than the standard grid functionality).

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crham 56 on at

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Thanks so much for your responses. ...feels refreshing to actually hear from someone who sounds like they know what they're talking about rather than 1 sentence answers and then begging for a click to be the accepted solution.

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